Baghdad, Iraq –Two bomb blasts shook the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Wednesday, killing at least 17 people, including four American security contractors traveling in a U.S. diplomatic convoy.
In the first attack, a makeshift bomb detonated as the U.S. convoy was traveling in the city in the morning, according to a statement by U.S. Embassy spokesman Peter Mitchell in Baghdad.
One vehicle veered off a bridge after the explosion, according to Lt. Col. Kareem Zoubaidi, a Basra police spokesman. Other cars in the convoy escaped unharmed, he said.
Three of the security contractors died at the scene and a fourth died after being taken to a hospital. All four worked for a private security firm supporting the regional U.S. Embassy office in Basra. The name of the company and victims were not released.
Later, a remote-controlled car bomb detonated near a cluster of restaurants and shops in the city, killing 13 and wounding 20, according to 1st Lt. Sabah Mayahi of the Basra police. Many of the victims were patrons enjoying a late dinner in the cooler evening air.
“We all rushed to the site, but then the gas tank of one of the cars exploded,” said Hassan Ahmed Radhi, 28, who was buying bread at a nearby store.
Basra has seen few of the insurgent attacks that have beset other Iraqi cities since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. But there have been occasional flare-ups. On Tuesday, two British soldiers were killed 12 miles south of Basra when their Land Rover hit a roadside bomb.
Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. military, acting on a tip, raided an isolated farmhouse outside the capital and rescued an American held hostage for 10 months.
Roy Hallums, 57, was “in good condition and is receiving medical care,” a military statement said after U.S. forces freed him and an unidentified Iraqi from the farmhouse, 15 miles south of Baghdad. The kidnappers escaped without a gun battle.
Hallums, formerly of Newport Beach, Calif., was kidnapped at gunpoint from his office in the Mansur district of Baghdad on Nov. 1. He was working at the time for the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Co., supplying food to the Iraqi army.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
